Comparing the technical efficiency of farms benefiting from different agricultural interventions in Kenya's drylands

Figures & data

Table 1: Ranking criteria for selection of intervention case studies

	Scoring criteria
	Low (1)	Moderate (2)	High (3)
Placement	LM2	LM3	LM4/LM5/LM6
Relevance	Single strategy, e.g. availability	Double strategy: availability, access	More than two strategies: availability, access, consumption
Evaluability	Technical personnel neither coordinated nor participated in the intervention	Technical personnel only participated in the intervention	Technical personnel coordinated the intervention
Note: LM2 to LM6 represent agro-ecological zones Low Moisture potentials 2 to 6, with decreasing potential for crop production (GoK, 1986).

Table 2: Statistical comparison of means of farm household characteristics between intervention and control groups

Project	MAP (N = 29)	ICRISATP (N = 25)	CBNP (N = 28)	K-REP (N = 29)	Irrigation (N = 23)	Control (N = 57)
Gender (female = 1)	0.14 (0.35)	0.20 (0.41)	0.37 (0.47)	0.27 (0.45)	0.13 (0.34)	0.22 (0.42)
Age (years)	53.3 (12.3)	47.5 (9.6)	53.5** (15.6)	52.1** (13.1)	40.1** (9.3)	43.0 (10.2)
Education level (schooling years)	9.6*** (3.4)	7.6 (3.6)	6.0 (4.8)	6.9 (4.1)	7.7 (2.7)	6.9 (2.3)
Land holdings (acres)	5.2** (4.5)	4.1 (2.5)	3.3 (1.5)	7.5*** (3.5)	2.0*** (1.6)	3.6 (2.2)
Household size (adult equivalents)	4.2 (1.3)	4.6 (1.8)	5.7*** (1.7)	5.5** (1.5)	3.9 (2.1)	4.3 (1.8)
Farm expenses (Kshs)	13 031** (13 444)	1 920 (1 173)	8 205 (10 018)	15 344** (12 060)	21 523** (15 133)	3 783 (5 096)
Farm productivity (Kshs/acre)	15 687** (26 785)	7 541 (8 733)	7 501 (331)	11 600** (9 154)	97 101** (76 073)	6 795 (3 884)
Note: Standard deviation in parentheses. N = sample size, KShs = Kenya shillings (exchange rate at 78 per US$ in 2006). **, *** = mean difference significant at the 95% and 99% confidence levels, respectively.

Figure 1: Location of Makueni (arrowed) among the dryland districts of Kenya

Figure 2: Distribution of CRS (constant returns to scale) and VRS (variable returns to scale) technical efficiency scores

Table 3: Statistical comparison of means of technical efficiencies of interventions and control group, and number of efficient farms

Intervention	CRS technical efficiency	VRS technical efficiency	Scale efficiency: CRS:VRS	Number of efficient farms
MAP (29)	0.126** (0.101)	0.193** (0.147)	0.800 (0.175)	0
ICRISATP (25)	0.147 (0.129)	0.232 (0.251)	0.794 (0.216)	1
CBNP (28)	0.089** (0.069)	0.115** (0.109)	0.839 (0.189)	2
K-REP (29)	0.063*** (0.058)	0.076*** (0.056)	0.763 (0.201)	1
Irrigation (23)	0.365*** (0.351)	0.471*** (0.354)	0.770 (0.204)	8
Control (57)	0.149 (0.138)	0.283 (0.316)	0.726 (0.255)	2
Total (191)	0.156 (0.203)	0.217 (0.269)	0.790 (0.208)	14
Note: Standard deviation in parentheses. **, *** = statistical significance at 95% and 99% confidence levels, respectively.

Table 4: Statistical comparison of means of household and farm variables for VRS efficient and not efficient farms

	Variable means
Variable description	Inefficient farms (VRS < 1)	Efficient farms (VRS =1)	t-statistic (Z)
Age (years)	46.9 (12.4)	41.2 (13.7)	–1.27
Education level (years)	7.7 (3.5)	6.9 (3.4)	–0.73
Household size (adult equivalents)	4.6 (1.9)	4.2 (2.6)	–0.57
Irrigated land (acres)	0.52 (1.3)	0.80 (0.70)	–2.34**
Rain-fed land (acres)	4.4 (3.0)	2.8 (2.3)	–1.97**
Farm expenditure (KShs)	10 513 (12 351)	11 031 (12 570)	–0.063
Crop yields (KShs)	79 650 (260 374)	205 527 (17 509)	–2.96***
Salaried income (KShs)	16 913 (40 240)	3 600 (11 354)	–0.34
Business income (KShs)	16 513 (28 258)	13 200 (27 714)	0.957
Access extension services (0,1)	0.54 (0.50)	0.60 (0.50)	–0.35
Access quality seeds (0,1)	0.44 (0.40)	0.90 (0.30)	–2.79***
Access credit services (0,1)	0.36 (0.48)	0.50 (0.52)	–0.86
Access produce markets (0,1)	0.41 (0.49)	0.80 (0.42)	–2.39**
Note: Standard deviation in parentheses. (0, 1) denotes access level where 0 = inadequate access and 1 = adequate access. **, *** = statistical significance at 95% and 99% confidence levels, respectively.